


His Mind is a World of its Own

by Peace_and_LongLife32



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Lorca's crew thinks he's a bit crazy, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-07 19:05:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12847566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peace_and_LongLife32/pseuds/Peace_and_LongLife32
Summary: The aftermath of too many jumps....





	1. You did this and you're going to fix it

Hugh sat by the bio-bed, watching his husband’s chest rise and fall. Hugh tried to convince himself that Paul was only sleeping, resting after his overwhelming day of spore-drive jumps. He knew that everyone was gossiping about the 133 jumps the astromycologist had performed but Hugh had kept count of all the jumps Paul had done within the climatic 24 hours protecting Pahvo. The one away from Pahvo and the one back, the ones used to dodge Klingon missiles, all the little jumps to keep the Klingon Ship of the Dead distracted while Burnham and Tyler snuck aboard… the fatal one that was suppose to bring them to Starbase 46 but instead stranded them in the middle of nowhere.  

 

Captain Lorca had entered the Sickbay only once, asked the CMO about the Lieutenant’s condition, meet Hugh’s enraged glare over her shoulder, and as soon as she was done briefing him, walked right back out without a word towards the weary doctor. 

 

Tilly had come in and out. She had apologized on numerous occasions about not telling him about the side effects earlier. She told him of the conversation she had had with him and not wanting to put Hugh in an impossible situation and after she had left he had grabbed Paul’s hand and kissed it, trying not to cry. 

 

Burnham only came in when he was asleep, in the chair next to Paul’s bed. Hugh wasn’t sure if she was doing it on purpose or not but he only knew she had been there through word of mouth from the nurses. 

 

Commander Saru had expressed his regrets right after Paul had been stabilized but had not returned since. 

 

Lieutenant Tyler would randomly sit on the other side of the biobed and keep Hugh company. 

 

“I didn’t realize you and Paul were close,” The Doctor inquired, the second time the Lieutenant pulled up a chair.

 

“I- He told me he understood, why I was avoiding talking about my uh ‘stress inducing experiences’ and said he had done the same after he lost his family and he offered a ‘listening ear’ should I need one. I took him up on it a couple times after the Mudd and time loop thing.”

 

“Oh… He never talks about his family and I wasn’t sure if he was even capable of listening.”  Hugh tried to smile but it felt forced.

 

Lieutenant Tyler huffed. “Yeah, I asked and he said it wasn’t about him. And I didn’t really talk  about the the whole torture thing but more figuring out how to get back into having a daily life. He uh, surprisingly had some good advice.”

 

“May I ask what that was?”

 

“He said to picture someone I care about smiling or laughing. That it wouldn’t magically cure me or anything but being able to make that person happy was a good goal to have when I felt like the weight on my shoulders was too much to carry. ‘When it’s too hard to take a step forward for yourself to remember there are people waiting for you just up ahead.’” 

 

Lieutenant Tyler gave him an embarrassed half grin, “He’s oddly insightful when he’s high on mushrooms.”

 

That started a laugh out of Hugh.

 

“I suppose that is one way of looking at it.”

 

They spent the rest of his visit in silence.

 

The first 48 hours Paul slept like he was dead. There was barely any movement, physically or mentally and Hugh feared the words ‘Brain Damage’ would start to be thrown around the medbay. 

 

At the 53 hour mark, his brain activity started spiking but still he slept. 

 

The CMO and nurses had repeatedly tried to get him to go back to his Quarters but he had hissed that he would get no rest in that room without Paul. 

 

They had set up Paul in a small, private room towards the back with a single biobed. They had given Hugh a cot at the 35 hour mark when it became clear there was no way to get him to budge without him breaking down. 

 

When 63 hours had passed and Paul’s brain activity had been stable for 8 hours without change, Hugh decided to go back to work. 

 

“Even if it’s just paperwork, I need something to do. I can’t keep just being idle, waiting for something that-” His voice broke, “may never happen.”

 

The CMO had sized him up before agreeing to let him administer Hyposprays and complete paperwork as long as he promised to let her know if he needed to step away.

 

He agree to her terms and spent the next 57 hours getting into the rhythm of a new routine.

Hyposprays. Paperwork. Check on Paul. Eat something without tasting it. Hyposprays. Paperwork. Hyposprays. Fix up some simple wounds with a Dermal Regenerator when the CMO gave the approval. Paperwork. Check on Paul. Set up the cot. Go to bed. Repeat all of the above. 

 

After four days, 96  **long** hours, of silence, Paul began murmuring in his sleep. Mostly unintelligible, apart from some names. He recognized a few: his own, Stall, a couple of crew members of the USS Discovery. 

 

The others, he couldn’t even begin to imagine who they belonged too, unable to remember if they had ever come up in previous conversations. 

 

In the middle of the fifth day, Paul woke up- Alert but unresponsive. 

 

He could not see them nor hear them and Hugh had quickly gone from blinking back tears of joy from his husband awaking to wiping away tears of despair. 

 

He would only react to direct stimulus, he did not appreciate being touched and lashed out whenever someone did so. 

 

He had even lashed out at Hugh and the nurses had to sedate him after Hugh was thrown across the room. 

 

For the first time since Paul had fallen into a coma, Hugh left the Medbay for something other than food or a change of clothes. 

 

Instead he went to the Captain. 

 

The Captain allowed him into his war-room and watched silently as Hugh gathered his thoughts. 

 

“ _ You did this  _ to my husband.”

 

Lorca opened his mouth to retort but Hugh raised a single finger and Lorca slowly closed his mouth a raised his eyebrow at the Doctor. 

  
  


“My husband may be grumpy but he is not violent, he is not insane, and he is not a machine. You don’t get to  _ treat him like he is _ .”

 

Hugh’s hands shook but he help himself upright. 

 

“You did this and you are  _ going to fix it _ . You, and Tilly, and Burnham and whoever else you need to use to do it but you  _ are  _ going to fix it, do you  _ understand _ ?” 

 

Lorca stared down Hugh, refusing to so much as blink until the Captain agreed to help him. 

 

Lorca chuckled, a low, dark sound that put Hugh at unease. 

 

“I see why Lieutenant Stamets talks so highly about you.” He looked out the window, out into the stars. 

 

“To clarify, it was the Lieutenant’s decision to make that final jump, not mine.”

 

Hugh began to fume and Lorca quickly continued, “However, I too want the Lieutenant to make a full recovery. Let's see what solutions our dream team of Scientists can come with, shall we?”

 

He then walked out, leaving Hugh to follow him down to engineering, without looking back to see if he was. 

 

Hugh, of course, did. 

 

Once they reached engineering, Captain Lorca told the scientists inside to take a break, with the exception of Tilly and Burnham. 

 

“So any thoughts on how to bring the Lieutenant fully back to the world of the living?”

 

He was met with two deadpan stares and Tilly slowly raising her hand. 

 

“Yes, Cadet?”

 

“We still have  the modified tech we used to create the artificial mind-meld between Burnham and Ambassador Sarek. We could, uh, try to alter it to send a message to  Lieutenant Stamets so he knows we’re not the enemy? We may not be able to communicate easily with him but he can still talk to us, if he knows what to tell us. I’m sure it’ll be easier to help him if we can  know what he’s going through- what he sees, what he hears, ya know?”

 

Burnham hmmed. “That could work… Possibly connected it to a spore system, if his neural pathways are stuck in the Mycelium Network?”

 

“Get started on it then.” Lorca commanded. 

 

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

 

“We’ll need his Brain-Circuitry Pattern and the CMO’s permission to attempt to communicate. Can you retrieve those?”

 

Hugh nodded and made his way back to med-bay. 


	2. The Power to Veto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Culber has a conversation with CMO Akaar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a while, but I had soooo many finals X/ 
> 
> But winter is here and freedom reigns so the next chapter will be up quicker next time around :)
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Receiving Paul’s Brain-Circuitry Pattern was easy enough. He was a doctor and he was Paul’s husband and Paul  _ had  _ made Hugh his medical proxy. The nurses really had no reason to deny him his request. Though the nurse who did so, did glance over at their boss’s door as she did so. He sent it to Cadet Tilly and then made his way over to the CMO’s office. 

 

He knocked and she looked up and for a moment looked through him.

 

“This isn’t going to be a pleasant conversation, is it?”

 

“Afraid not.” Hugh confessed. 

 

She sighed and motioned for him to enter and to close the door behind him. 

 

He did so and sat across from her. Her desk was made out of a dark wood, was worn down from years of use, and had things scattered across it. It looked out of place on a ship made of new and shiny things. 

 

“What can I do for you, Doctor?”

 

“I would like your permission for Specialist Burnham and Cadet Tilly to design and use a device that may allow us to communicate with Lieutenant Stamets while he is stuck in his indisposed state.”

 

The CMO hummed. “Isn’t that what got us into this situation in the first place. People experimenting on your husband?”

 

Hugh took a moment. “Technically, he experimented on himself.”

 

“So that makes it okay for others to do it too?”

 

“No-” Hugh closed his eyes and gathered his thoughts. “Of course not- but if they can make him better...”

 

“That’s a pretty big if, Hugh.”

 

“They’re like a dream team, you’ve seen them in action. They’re always finding crazy solutions that work out.”

 

“Yes… That’s true. However, they are currently missing a key component of their ‘dream team’, are they not?”

 

Hugh sucked in a breath like he had just been punched in the gut. 

 

The USS Discovery’s CMO, Kayi Akaar, had been through alot in her life. She no longer really gave the courtesy of holding back her punches, having learned to use her words as weapons from a young age. Her gaze pierced through his very being as she stared him down. 

  
“I’m not trying to be cruel, Hugh. You have to understand-”

  
  
“I know,” he interrupted, “It’s not just mine or their careers at risk- it’s also yours-“ 

  
  
His boss held up a hand and he trailed off.

  
  
“Hugh, this is about so much than our careers. This is about your husband’s  _ life _ .” 

 

Hugh recoiled in shock. 

  
“You haven’t even considered that they may fail, have you?”   
  


“Of course I have-“   
  


“Just not in a way that could lead to your husband’s death?”

  
  
Hugh placed his elbows on the edge of the desk and let his head fall into his hands.   
  


“I… No. I guess I hadn’t.”    
  


“It’s okay, Hugh. It’s easy to get caught up in people like the Captain and Specialist Burnham. They seem so confident, so sure of themselves it’s like nothing they do could ever end up going wrong... which I find to be ironically illogical, since we’ve seen how things can go wrong first hand, haven’t we?” She said softly, smiling at him.     
  


Hugh tried to gave her a smile back, but it came out as more of a tired grimace.    
  


“Hugh, my dear, I just don’t want you to go through with this, lose him, and then spend the rest of your life blaming yourself.”    
  


She tapped her stylus against her desk, staring at some knick-knack on the shelf behind him.    
  


“I’m assuming they’ve already started working on this device?”   
  


Hugh made a sound, a mix of agreement and defeat. 

 

She continued to star past him, biting at her lip, before coming to a decision. 

“I want a full list of all safety measures before any attempts to communicate are put into motion and I hold the right to veto this at any time.” 

 

She went back to her PADD as Hugh stared at her. 

 

She looked up and seemed almost surprised that he was still there. 

 

“You’re going to approve it?”

 

“I didn’t say that. However, I know you. You have a very good head on your shoulders. I don’t think you and Paul would be as good a match as you are if you didn’t. Even when you are emotional, you still act in a logical manner. You truly do not believe that they will cause your husband any harm. If you did, you wouldn't let them anywhere near him. So, I will permit this to continue until I am given a reason to otherwise. However, the moment I feel like it’s gone too far I will shut the entire thing down, do you understand?”

 

“Yes, I do… Thank you,” He said, standing up, but he had a final question burning on the tip of his tongue. 

 

“I know you think I won’t let my emotions overcome me, but sometimes… when it comes to Paul, I am afraid I can’t help but be swept up by all I feel for him. Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

 

“I think that remains to be seen. We do not yet know what their device will do. However, I want you to remember, you too have the right to veto this at any time Hugh. If you feel like somethings wrong or you think you’re compromised and want to stop it or take extra precautions, that is your right. Lorca may be the Captain, but right now you and I are the ones in charge of this operation, not him. Also, you are not alone. I will help you through this. The entire medical team is behind you on this, okay? We won’t let you falter.”

 

Hugh took a deep, ragged breath and felt some tension leave him. She was right. He did have some control of the situation and he was not alone. CMO Akaar was in his corner and he knew she would fight Lorca for his husband if she had too. 

 

“Thank you, for everything.”

 

“Of course, Doctor Culber” She lowered her voice to barely a whisper, “Don’t tell anyone but you’re one of my favorites. Not that I wouldn’t help if you weren’t but you know… ”

 

Hugh laughed, “It’s always nice to hear. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Also you’re my favorite boss.”

 

She mocked frowned at him, “I hope that’s not just in comparison to Lorca. That’s not a complaint, just common sense.”

 

Hugh’s eye grew wide and he tried not to laugh, but ended up gasping in air and choking on it instead. 

 

“Absolutely my favorite overall, Doctor Akaar. I’ll talk to you later, make sure you’re in the loop for all the plans.”

 

“Very good. I’ll see you later, Doctor Culber. Please close the door behind you.”

 

He nodded and did so.

 

He left medbay and started walking towards Engineering to catch Cadet Tilly and Specialist Burnham up to date.


End file.
